Purple Eyes in the Dark

Did You Know?

• Rinko Ozaki has a fixation on a weird birthmark on her arm that causes her to shapeshift into a leopard.
• The series was republished in seven bunkoban volumes in 1995.

Characters

Rinko Ozaki is a first-year high school student with a crush on her childhood friend Shin'ya Mizushima. When assaulted by classmates, she involuntarily transforms into a leopard and kills them. Shin'ya Mizushima, a third-year student who has known Rinko since childhood, shelters her after finding her unconscious following the deaths. Kaoruko Sonehara, Rinko's biology teacher, studies humans who can turn into beasts with her father.

After seeing Rinko's birthmark, she suspects Rinko is such a human and conducts cruel experiments on her and her sister Maiko, assuming Maiko can also transform because they share blood. Maiko later dies during these experiments. Professor Sonehara, Kaoruko's father, presented evidence of beast-transforming humans to the scientific world but was shamed and rejected; he set himself on fire in madness, survived, but succumbed to insanity. Kaoruko locked him in their basement to preserve his reputation.

Media

EMI Music released two albums for the series with songs by Linda Hennrick: Purple Eyes in the Dark on March 20, 1986, and Purple Eyes in the Dark: Part 2 on January 27, 1993. Vocalists included Shoko Yamagiwa, Derek Jackson, and Seki Mayumi. J.C. Staff and Youmex produced a 30-minute OVA music video adaptation in 1987. Shogakukan published a series of six light novels titled Purple Eyes in the Dark Novel. Toei Company produced an 11-episode live-action television drama that aired on TV Asahi from July 1 to September 9, 1996.